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When your idea is completely out of your skill set
BardStuff
subscriber Posts: 7
I`m a lifelong computer geek. All my education, all my career experience, all of it centers around playing with things, predicting trends, writing software, and basically anything and everything involving technology. It`s kind of a pain, really, because "I build web sites" has really become a commodity, and having 10 years experience at it is no more valuable than having 2 years (although I`m sure people would debate that with me). I have a full time job working in the web space, though I`m well aware that my current career path will never make me an entrepreneur.So anyway, here`s my question. Twice recently I`ve had ideas for products that are entirely out of my skillset. Both are more in the category of materials manipulation (one for a children`s craft, one for a type of functional jewelry). Neither is technical at all, they both fall under the category of "I`ve never seen that before, and I think it would be useful to me/my family."What I`m torn on is, now what? Ideas are worth a dollar, implementations of ideas are worth a million dollars. But I have nothing that will get me toward implementing either idea -- not the knowledge of what to do first, nor the resources to get it done, nor the connections to do something with it once they`re made.Optimistically I know what to do -- by any means necessary get some sort of prototype created, preferably a bunch of them, and then get them used by people. Preferably sell them at a local show or something to generate a few bucks to offset the costs of building them in the first place. Test them out, see if the design works or it has to be tweaked. Repeat. Put up web site. Market heavily. Make million dollars. One of them I`m pretty sure I could mock up in my kitchen, but the other might just be a pipe dream.But pessimistically I tell myself that will take time and money, neither of which I have much of, for potentially no gain. I have no expertise in the area at all, so there might be something glaringly obvious that will cause the whole idea to fail that I`m simply not seeing. Or, worse, that the idea already exists and I just haven`t seen it yet.So maybe I`m just rambling because I`m bored here at work, but I figured I`d throw my situation out there and see what sort of advice people might have?
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Comments
Matt
Matt
starpointe2006-4-18 17:52:22
Here`s the biggest question...is there a market for it? There are millions of ideas out there but only so many of them are marketable. Do some research. Talk to people who aren`t in your family or circle of friends and ask them what they think of the idea. (You`re probably concerned with `non-disclosure` but it`s extremely...highly unlikely that someone else will take your idea and run with it. One marketing professor I had said, "I don`t care how novel an idea is...someone has already had it! It`s just not that unique!) If you get a good response from people, find out how much they`d be willing to pay for it? Does the profit margin fit your needs? What % of the people you talked with say they would definitely buy it? You might dream up a product that would return 1000% profit but if you don`t sell any, it`s just not worth the effort. If the numbers still look good to you, grab a pencil and a napkin and start writing a plan. Nothing complicated, just a basic strategy for how you can make this work.I think I`ve given you enough to do for now. When you get all that done, come back to the forums and we`ll have some more advice for ya!- Ryan JMarketing Consultant: StarPointe Marketing